LGBT people participate in a gay pride parade in Hong Kong. Photo: CFP

Recently, Ireland has become the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. This piece of news was widely celebrated on the Internet in China by LGBT groups. But in China, homosexual people often do not share the same benefits as straight people. Right now, some NGOs and firms are offering programs to reach out to the LGBT community and offer equal work opportunities.

When Wang Lili (pseudonym) interned at a State company a couple years back, she worked hard to keep herself in the closet.

She sensed the environment wasn't accepting or friendly. When her boss asked her whether she had a boyfriend, she said no. Then her boss urged her to get married soon.

"All women should marry before 30. Those who don't must be nuts," her boss said.

Even though Wang said her coworkers were helpful and nice to her, many of them are quite conservative. When her boss urged her to get married, he was joking, but it surely reflected their mindset.

Wang shared this story at the second annual Career Workshop for LGBT students, which was held last Sunday by Goldman Sachs.

Right now, some foreign companies have started reaching out to the LGBT community and stressing the equal opportunities they provide to these people. But for now, many homosexuals are still hiding in the closet in the workplace, even as some activists push for change.

Woes and hardships

Currently, Wang is a student in Beijing. When she came out to her parents in high school, they reacted with arguments, shouting and denial. Her parents at first thought she was just rebelling, and it was a phase that would eventually pass.

But when her "phase" didn't pass, she and her parents entered a standoff, where nobody talked about her sexual orientation at home. Wang knows the issue is still not resolved, and her family is still not at ease with her sexual orientation.

But she thinks it's not yet time to solve the issue. She wants her parents to come to accept her on her own, instead of being pushed.

The priority at hand is for Wang to get a job. She is graduating next year, and thinking about her past experience, Wang decided a foreign company might be a better place for her because they "have a better environment," she said.

Jacob Huang, who also spoke at the workshop, was employed by a State-owned company before joining Aibai.com, a grass-roots gay right organization. He wasn't personally attacked, but he had the feeling that some workers gossiped about LGBT workers, and had stereotyped impressions of homosexuals gleaned from movies or books.

"Also, when you are in a State company, they ask whether you have a romantic partner, and some try to set you up with dates," he said.

During his second year after graduation, Huang got a job at Aibai, a place where he doesn't have to hide his identity.

According to a survey by Aibai from 2013, out of 1,029 LGBT interviewees, only about 6 percent display their sexual orientation publicly in the workplace. Forty-seven percent are not public at all, and 46 percent only tell a couple of their colleagues or good friends.

Most of these people remain in the closet because they are afraid of being gossiped about. They are also worried about colleagues keeping a distance, losing a chance for promotion, or word of their sexuality being leaked to their family members.

The issue of possible job discrimination against homosexuals came into public view in 2014, when two gay people got into an argument on the streets of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. The noisy and salacious fight was surreptitiously caught on video and posted online by an amused bystander.  One of the two people in the video, Mu Yi, was forced out of the closet, and a month later, he was fired from his company.

Mu then sued the company for discrimination based on his sexuality. The court ruled that there's no evidence the company fired Mu because of discrimination, but Mu decided he will appeal his case.

Even though that case was widely followed on the Internet, it hardly caused a ripple in the work world. The situation facing homosexuals on the job is still difficult.

A worker who attended the first LGBT career workshop said she asked a gay student from the Capital Medical University whether his teachers taught them anything about homosexuality as they study medicine. The student said when the professor got to the chapter; he skipped it and asked the students to read it themselves.

The student said he felt encouraged by the positive messages he received at the workshop, but he added that he didn't have the courage to come out. He said he needed to think about his future, and find a job.

Catching the tide

The medical student's concern is widely shared by many. Right now, there are some companies that offer LGBT awareness programs or stress equal pay and opportunities, but they are either foreign firms' China headquarters or gay-rights NGOs.

"The efforts by the local firms are very weak right now," Hu Zhijun, the director of PFLAG (Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays), said.

Goldman Sachs' program in China is in line with those at its international headquarters. It has had a diversity program since 1999, providing equal pay and profits for all gay and lesbian workers and their families, said Paul Choi, co-head of the LGBT Employee Network in Asia.

The company also has educational training and lectures, run by volunteers from the company. In the past, the company has invited bisexuals, parents of homosexuals and transsexuals to come and give lectures.

In April, 17 businesses, mostly foreign, cooperated with the Shanghai gay-rights NGO WorkForLGBT and held China's first LGBT job fair in Shanghai.

Steven Bielinski, founder of WorkForLGBT, said he approached more than 100 companies at first. Only 10 percent showed up, but it's more than he had expected.

The four-hour fair attracted 17 companies with more than 500 LGBT job seekers registering to attend.

These measures are helping to  introduce LGBT people in China to a new way of thinking about employers.

An attendee said she found the companies at the LGBT job fair to be more open and diverse than average employers.

Several attendees at the Goldman Sachs' career workshop also expressed the same feeling. Wang attended the workshop last year as well, saying it had broadened her horizons on what companies can offer.

Choi said from the anonymous workers' surveys he collected every year, he could see that more and more people are willing to come out, and they are happy with the company.

But sadly, Chinese companies are not taking a pioneering role in welcoming gay workers. Some State companies, like the one Wang interned at, had a conservative leadership.

Hu said in his encounters with companies in the past, he discovered that some business directors don't have any awareness about gay people at all.

"Some directors even asked me, 'Really? There are gay people in my company?'" he said.

Some local companies are unsure of how they can create a more gay-friendly environment.

In April, PFLAG's Hu Zhijun presented at China's e-commerce giant Alibaba for the first time.

At the company's headquarters, he shared touching stories of gay couples who met, got married and had children.

It wasn't Alibaba's initial intention to focus on gay rights. In fact, at first the organizers didn't think of gay rights as an individual category. A variety of NGOs came to the panel, such as a nature conservancy group, a youth group, and a rare diseases group.

But after the talks, Hu received a feedback that his speech was voted most favorite by the workers.

In fact, it was so powerful that the organizer of the panel reached out to Hu a couple weeks later, asking whether she can do something to help their homosexual workers have an easier time.

"It is believed that homosexuals are 3 to 5 percent of the entire population. Alibaba has 40,000 workers, so that makes approximately 2,000 of them gay," Hu said. "That's a big number."

Hu told the Alibaba organizer that she can start with small things, such as putting a non-discrimination clause in the contract that includes LGBT people.

In his experience, some of his friends were accepted by foreign companies and signed contracts that included the clause. Upon reading it, they felt reassured and supported by their companies. This clause alone won their loyalty.

"Maybe Alibaba isn't ready for bigger changes, but at least it can start with something small," he said. "There are so many local companies who don't have any effective measures right now. Some companies need to take the lead."